Living Wages in BC and Canada

Living wages in BC

The Living Wage for Families Campaigns works with 21 communities across BC who have calculated their local living wage.

The living wage is defined as a regional calculation that looks at the amount that a family of four needs to earn to meet their expenses. The living wage includes costs like rent and groceries as well as items like extended health care and two weeks' savings for each adult. It does not include debt repayment or savings for future plans.

For Metro Vancouver and Victoria rent is the highest expense in the living wage calculation but in the Fraser Valley child care is the highest expense that families face. A regional calculation allows communities to identify policy advocacy that would positively impact poverty in their community.

The Living Wage for Families Campaign calculates the Living Wage for Metro Vancouver and certifies employers across BC. The map above also includes other communities who have calculated their living wage using our calculation. If your community does not yet have a living wage calculation, see this video for a one-hour webinar that explains how the Metro Vancouver living wage is calculated and how you can adopt this methodology to use in your own community.

Living wages in Canada

More and more communities across Canada are taking action in response to this country’s increasingly high levels of low-wage poverty. Why? They want everyone to afford the basic necessities of life, to live with dignity and to actively participate in their community – they want a living wage.

The online site Living Wage Canada supports this national living-wage movement through facilitated learning and information-sharing. The site’s Canadian Living Wage Framework provides a consistent living wage definition and calculation methodology, and a strategy for recognizing corporate and community leadership who commit to passing a living wage policy.